


Inconceivable

by QueenOfTheWesternSky



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-20 09:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheWesternSky/pseuds/QueenOfTheWesternSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a lot to break a Hero of Heart, but only then do they truly become strong.</p><p>This was never how he wanted it to happen.</p><p>Not that it made a difference in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When all the problems with Jake started, Roxy was of course the person he turned to. Not that he really had all that many options, but Dirk was pretty damn sure that even if there had have been billions of people around for him to talk to, he still would have gone to her. She was his best friend after all, a multi-universal constant, the one person who would always listen to him even if her problems were so much worse, even if she was so drunk she couldn't remember her own name, she was still fine to listen to him. She told him once that she'd be a pretty shitty best friend if she couldn't even listen to him ramble a little.

Roxy always answered, always without a doubt. Which worked out pretty well considering half the time, he stayed up all night doing something ridiculous and messaged her at three in the morning, asking for her opinion on something. She always answered, absolutely and without hesitation (Perhaps a little hesitation might have improved her typos, but that was drastically beside the point).

But this was the third day in a row she hadn't answered. Three days of radio silence from the chattiest girl left in the universe. After a lot of pleading on his end, he managed to get some information out of Jake and Jane, their petty little issues could wait until he knew Roxy was safe. But that was the problem, it wasn't only him who'd been received with nothing but silence. No one had heard from Roxy in three days. There was never a time in his life that they'd gone without talking for this long, and after midnight on the third day, a sick feeling settled in his stomach, with no intentions of moving any time soon.

A little more pleading and the others had agreed to help him look for her. It was terse and awkward, Dirk couldn't look Jake in the eye and Jake couldn't look Jane in the eye. He'd have preferred working alone, but there was too much ground to cover and not nearly enough time. They all spread out, taking the most obvious places first, then spanning out.

Five days and they still hadn't found her. Five days without a message, without a single word. There was no sign of her, as if she'd just fallen from existence, not died, merely disappeared far beyond reach. Twelve hours into day five, he found her, immediately wishing he hadn't. Because maybe, if she was just missing, she could still be okay. He'd find her sitting somewhere, sipping a martini and giggling at something ridiculous, cooing at him with her stupid little pet names.

God, why couldn't she just be missing?

When he found the body—no, Roxy, it was still Roxy— his mind went into overdrive. He could tell by looking at the mess of a scene that this had happened to her five days ago, just after she disappeared. He could also tell exactly what and who did it to her. Every last detail he could discern.

But that didn't help. No amount of variables or details or information was going to help him. Nothing was going to fucking help, when his knees gave way, leaving him kneeling there, cold blood seeping into his clothes, he could barely stand to look. Because more stupid insignificant fucking details were going to jump out at him and none if it mattered. Because what good were words and facts and figures if she wasn't there. Nothing mattered if she wasn't there.

A world where Roxy Lalonde did not exist was completely inconceivable. It simply was not a possibility for her not to be there, laughing and smiling at everything like it was the greatest thing she'd ever seen, not making a whole mess of typos when she was trying to make an important point, not there. Not living, not breathing, not—

This whole thing was a stupid goddamn game, wasn't it? What was it going to take for a reset? To start these last couple of months over, to make her get the hell up and tell him it was a joke, it was just a sick fucked up joke. She was fine, she had to be.

Her eyes were still open, the colour a little clouded over now, like she was in a daze, like at any moment she'd blink a couple of times and laugh it off as a joke. She tripped, bumped her head, she was going to be okay, sore but okay. But they were frozen open in terror, her entire expression one of mortification, fear and desperation. It took a while, a really long goddamn time, before he could bring himself to touch her to close her eyes.

She'd ever been cold. Not a day in her life had Roxy ever been anything but warm and bubbly, both in personality and physically. He could remember now, when they finally all met up, and stopped panicking like a bunch of morons, she'd insisted on a proper hug from each of them. She'd been warm and friendly, and really everything he'd ever known.

But now her skin was cold as ice. Freezing to the touch, and pale. So very pale. Without making a single sound, this was far too solemn for noise, he brushed her hair back, off her face gently, then pulled his hand back as if she'd bitten him. The shock was beginning to subside, and it hit him like someone had dropped a fucking boulder on him. She wasn't sleeping or in a daze, she was stone cold dead. 

Grief wasn't something Dirk had ever known, there wasn't much chance for it. He'd known, and loved, exactly three people in his life. Before then he'd never truly lost someone, it started as a physical pain, like someone had sucker punched him in the gut and before he knew what was happening, he was hunched over, his hands curled into fists in pools of cold blood. He didn't know when he started crying, barely noticing the way his eyes seemed to sting and burn, or that breathing was becoming so unbelievably hard. Funny to think the things that become so difficult to do once someone beloved had been lost.

He could breathe or think or formulate any coherent thought, no he was so beyond that. He was choking on his own tears, and he could almost hear her in the back of his mind, telling him not to waste tears on her, keep his chin up or whatever the fuck she usually said to cheer him up. 

When he started screaming, he was honestly quite surprised. How was his voice working so well now when he could hardly even remember how to breathe? He was screaming and ranting and raving, like he'd lost his mind. No, that was too simple. She was more important than mere sanity, she was Roxy for fuck's sake. He was screaming at her, at the universe, at a god he'd never believed in demanding to know why, demanding answers, and most importantly, demanding for her to wake the fuck up. They had to go, Jane and Jake were looking for her, she had to come back, he couldn't....he didn't...

"JUST WAKE THE FUCK UP."

He fell silent, panting breathlessly, his words echoing through the empty city surrounding them. He had to go, the others would be waiting for him to report back, wanting him to say he'd found her, she was fine. She broke her phone or something stupid like that. So wordlessly, he picked her up, an arm under her knees and one at the small of her back. "I'll take you back, somewhere safe..." He said, trying to delude himself into believing she could hear him. "And then...then I'll...I'll..."

He didn't think words existed to describe what he was going to do when he got his hands on her, the batterwitch. Before then, Dirk had never really cared. She existed, she fucked up the world, but he didn't really give a fuck about the woman. They'd deal with her when the time came, him and Roxy had joked about it when they were younger, being the ones to defeat the batterwitch. 

He was going to murder that bitch with his own two hands.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three remaining Alpha Players deal with the fallout of Roxy's death.

The long walk back was so unbearably silent, Dirk ended up talking to her. Even though most of the time it was her who chattered away at him, about anything and about everything. Like she just wanted an excuse to make some kind of noise, reaffirm her existence. But she couldn't do that now, so he resorted to telling her things he'd probably told her a thousand times before. Stupid little stories about his mundane life before the game (Even though she'd made him tell her about what he did all day back then), and what he'd been doing since they'd last properly seen each other. Quests, adventures, explorations, hunting trips. Things that really didn't seem as important now that she wasn't there to listen to the stories. But he spoke anyway, because the alternative was to listen to the only sounds surrounding him and the dead weight in his arms, the sound of his steps, his breathing, his heart still hammering in his ears. More than once he'd stumbled, from casting his eyes down to look at her, rather than where he was going, like he was expecting her to just open her eyes all of a sudden. Just a joke, she was fine.

Of course, that didn't happen.

It finally dawned on him that it wasn't going to happen when he was only a few feet away from where Jane and Jake were waiting for him. Once he'd started functioning well enough to think to tell them, he'd sent them a message. They all needed to meet up. The roof of Roxy's place, like always. He didn't mention her, alive or otherwise. This wasn't the kind of news one delivered over IM and if he didn't tell them the whole truth, they'd get there hopes up. All they'd take in was that he was bringing her back. So he merely relayed the message that it was incredibly important that they all meet up in precisely fifteen minutes on the roof. 

For the first--no, second time--in his life, Dirk Strider was late. When he'd stopped only a matter of feet from the teleport that would take him to where they were waiting, he realised this was the last time he'd be able to hide from this. He stood there for a good few minutes, still like he was made of stone, staring blankly into the space around him. Then he checked to make sure no traces of his earlier breakdown remained on his face, made sure his shades were on straight. And that Roxy's hair was out of her face. It was a good five minutes before he managed to work up the courage to step through.

Naturally, he regretted it the instant he did.

Jane was pacing, her arms crossed across her chest in anxiety, or perhaps agitation, he didn't really know, mid-sentence when he stepped through. Jake was leaning against a vent, his hands stuffed in his pockets, remaining quiet while Jane ranted away. But they both loosened up when he stepped through, then froze. He watched as their eyes went from overjoyed--he had Roxy with him, surely she was okay-- to wide from horror when they realised what was going on. Jane's hands flew to her mouth, muffling a shriek, while he heard Jake let out a string of curses under his breath that would have made a sailor cry. Dirk didn't stay standing there for long, he crossed over to a table that had clearly been set up for the party they'd never had, and with some careful manoeuvring, swiped everything from its surface with one movement of his arm. Afterwards, he proceeded to lay down the bo--Roxy on it, making sure her hands were folded carefully a few inches above her hips, as if such a thing actually mattered now. At which point he turned to face the others, Jane seemed to be trying to speak, opening her mouth to speak, then realising that she hadn't the slightest idea what to say and shutting it promptly.

"How..." She finally managed, after they all spent a good few minutes in silence--save the choked sobbing Jake seemed to be trying to muffle. 

"Batterwitch." He replied simply. Dirk was still pretty sure that anything beyond one or two word answers weren't going to work if he wanted to prevent another meltdown. Someone had to keep it together, and he'd had the longest to deal with this. It didn't seem to be helping though.

"How long?" Jake asked, seeming to have overcome his inability to talk.

"Five days, if I had to guess."

"She's been dead this whole time and we didn't--" Jane seemed to break at that point, crumpling in on herself as her legs gave way and she sunk to the floor, tears flowing down her face in torrents. "This whole time..."

Jake took a step towards her, hesitating for a moment, like he realised that she'd been upset with him, then casting it aside and kneeling down next to her, wrapping an arm around Jane's shoulders. He started murmuring to her, telling her to try and calm down, that it would be okay. Moments later, Jake raised his head from where he'd been resting it atop hers to cast his gaze at Dirk, who'd yet to move an inch from his position near the table, tears running down his face. He opened his mouth, trying to speak, but seemingly having forgotten the words. Dirk gave a tiny nod and walked towards them, falling into a crouch in front of them. He reached out a gloved hand--which was still covered in blood, dried now-- and lifted Jane's chin. 

"This isn't your fault. It isn't anyone’s. The blame rests with her. This is not your fault, Jane." He spoke quietly, as calmly as he could manage, then met Jake's gaze, nodding one last time. _'Same to you.'_

"B-But she...I..." Jane croaked out. "How can she be gone?"

Dirk couldn't say anything in response to that, for he still did not believe in a world where Roxy Lalonde did not exist, instead of saying a word, he shifted forward onto his knees and loosely put an arm around Jane, the other hand going to rest on Jake's shoulder. 

"Isn't there anyway...I mean, in this game...you brought her back before." Jake stammered, pleading with Dirk like he was God, like he could simply will Roxy into breathing again, and that would be that.

"She's been gone too long, I can't--" He cut off when a choked sort of sob escaped his throat, and ducked his head. "She's gone."

With a shaky nod, Jake rested his head atop Jane's again, his movements hesitant, like he didn't quite know what to do, how he was meant to act. 

After a while, how long Dirk had no clue, time was meaning less and less to him as seconds--maybe even minutes-- slipped away from him, he pulled away from both of them, rising back to his full height without a single sound. He walked back over to where Roxy lay, leaning down to press his lips to her forehead very briefly, before he pulled out his sword, striding past the two on the floor, who just then seemed to be noticing his absence.

"Don't follow." And just like that he was gone, without another word.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk make's a terrible decision.

In hindsight, which was really all someone on their deathbed had, this had not been his best plan. In fact he’d go so far as to say this may have even been his worst plan yet. And in his short life of sixteen years, Dirk Strider had come up with some god awful plans (Somehow the one involving cutting off his own head never fell into the bad category, he had after all survived the ordeal and ensured that his friends did the same, though with slightly less trauma).

Of course in his almost definitely suicidal quest to kill a creature that there was little chance an army of gods could handle, much less just him, he had no been idiotic enough to go in there without first ascending. Though really, when he thought about it, it hadn’t done him much good, except give him a brand new ridiculous looking outfit to die in. He wasn’t entirely sure just yet, but if he had to guess, he probably wasn’t going to wake up again once consciousness finally slipped away from him. It made sense, he supposed, dying while trying to avenge a loved one seemed pretty heroic in theory.

Though in practice, there was nothing at all heroic about dying. It was a cold dark sort of pain that seemed to be taking more and more of his body the longer he lay there. He’d long since stopped screaming in pain, or for help. Not out of stubbornness or common sense telling him no one was coming for him, but out of the sheer fact that there was so much blood pooling in his lungs that he could barely breathe, much less make any helpful sound. Everything was just awful squelching pants as he struggled to take any air into his lungs.

Bitterly, he wondered if it would have been too much trouble for the Batterwitch to just kill him, rather than beating his body into a useless bloody sack of meat, then leaving him there to drown in his own blood. He’d noted, back when he could still stand and his shattered femur wasn’t poking out of his leg, that she’d seemingly taken care to not inflict any injuries to his brain or his heart. There was little doubt in his mind that his slow, painful and incredibly terrifying death was her way of making a point out of him, though it wouldn’t come as a surprise if she got her kicks from making people suffer like this.

With the way his vision was starting to darken and the way his body--though not the pain--seemed so detached, so far away, he was pretty sure he didn’t have long to go. Good. He was getting sick of the smell of blood, and the way every breath seemed to push his snapped rib further into his lung, and good god did he miss air. He probably should have been more scared of the afterlife than he was, but he’d been assured by several sources that the afterlife really wasn’t that bad. He wondered briefly if Roxy had known that when she died. Had she been scared? Or had she known what was coming? He was finding that regardless of whether or not one knew, there was still a certain element of fear. The sort of fear that made him wish his legs still worked enough to run as far away as he could, like somehow he could outrun the incoming darkness threatening to overtake his entire being.

He was pretty sure in some other timeline, probably a lot of other timelines, that he wasn’t dying. And that Roxy wasn’t dead. She was still bright, bubbly and alive, probably causing someone, somewhere a lot of trouble. That was a pretty comforting thought. Somewhere in the huge multiverse they existed within, there was a version of him that was safe and alive and with the people he loved the most. Roxy was still breathing, Jane and Jake weren’t making preparations to bury a friend (He felt bad now, that he’d left them behind with another mess to handle. He hoped whole heartedly that their back up was arriving soon to take them away from this whole disaster).

But pretty soon, it was hard to focus on anything, much less the idea of another timeline and other versions of himself and the people he loved. Everything was getting far too dark and far too quiet. He couldn’t hear his own laboured breathing anymore, or feel the shooting pain up his thigh where the bone had sliced through flesh. In fact, he could barely feel anything anymore. Pain or otherwise. He couldn’t feel the overwhelming pressure on his chest, or the dull ache in his eyes from having his shades off for so long (They’d been knocked off during the fight, he was pretty sure that they’d been destroyed now). He couldn’t feel anything. 

And then there was nothing.

There was just darkness. A cold sort of dark, the kind of dark that made one think that there would never again be anything light or warm in all the world. But like a lot of things lately, Dirk was wrong in assuming the darkness was everlasting, because it disappeared, faded into a blinding white and then finally settling into...well, something a great deal more familiar than he was expecting.

“I shoulda known you’d do something like this. C’mon, I thought you’d have more common sense than to end up like this, Dirk.”

When his mind finally caught up with everything that was happening, he sat up dead straight (No pain, he noted, or blood), his now covered eyes going wide as they darted around the scene in front of him. Sure enough, he wasn’t wrong when he thought he knew that voice. Many hours of phone and skype calls, as well as a few weeks of meaningless chatter in person ensured that he knew that voice _very_ well. He opened his mouth, as if to protest what she was saying, but when he thought about it, she was probably right.

With a sigh, Roxy Lalonde held out her hand to help him to his feet, looking down at him with white eyes and an almost glad expression on her face. “Well hurry it up. We’ve only got forever to waste.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this had a purpose and now it's just this.


End file.
